Keep calm and carry on

And pfffzzzzzttt, here is me appearing at the other end of the Tunnel of Rebooting. Indeed, after The Events of Mid-February (the Break Up and ensuing serious self doubt) I am back. Back in Business even.
First of all, I am back as a super woman of power at work. I have started operation PUSH BACK THE CR@P - exercising the power of no, thinking about my future, and slowly shaping my career path to go from "the really helpful one in the corner who generally helps out with stuff but we are not sure what she really does" to "the one over there who has a vision and and who is doing things intelligently".
Secondly, I have resumed my mission to build the Body of a Goddess. I keep talking about it. I keep thinking about it, and now I am DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT. So tomorrow for instance, there will be one motivated lady running around the local park, even if it's 6am, even if it's a bit cold, because she is determined to lose those 7 kgs.
And lastly, I am back in the Dating Mental Space. I have not really dipped a toe in. Well I lie. I have been to a couple of parties and have visually assessed the merchandise on offer, but only visually. I am not feeling uber confident yet, so am taking it slow.
I have also taken the brave step of signing up to an internet dating site, as safe way to test the waters. After a few email exchanges one guy suggested we meet up but never followed up. And one strange Scottish man offered to cover me in food in a "naughty but nice" way. Ewwww. But it's not deterring me so far.

Ready or not?

On Friday I met a friend of my mum's who lives near the south coast. We also met her new boyfriend. Those two had met on a dating site (she had separated from her husband a couple of years ago). And I was very impressed, that these guys, who are in their 60s, actually went on line, and were not afraid to look for love. And the worst is, they are all dating like crazy! They already have several exes (from the dating site), and it looks like now my mum's friend and her boyfriend are very happy together.
So if 60 something year olds living on the south coast of England can do it successfully, why not me? I took a peek at the website they used (which you'll be relieved to know does not only cater for the 60 year olds market), and I have decided to sign myself up. After all, what have I got to lose? Last time I was single I was living in Hong Kong, which was not the world's best environment to meet someone, so I am feeling very rusty in the dark art of dating. But perhaps a few encounters of that kind can help me get back on the dating horse, so to speak.
But I am not quite ready yet, I am still working on feeling like a goddess physically (trying to bring myself into shape a bit) and mentally (through my current mental reboot process). After that is completed (ETA May 2011) I will be ready for my world domination plans. In the meantime, I will go and have a slice of pizza now instead.

Yes Woman

One of my favorite books is "Yes Man" by Danny Wallace, about a London guy, semi loser, who one day decides to say yes to everything: accepting party invitations, lending money to mates and yes to all other challenges that life throws his way (the book was later made into a Hollywood movie with Jim Carrey which was not as good as the original). Well last week I turned into Yes Woman, accepting all outing suggestions, and as a result ended up going out every single night:

• Monday a drink or two (and juicy gossip) with an ex colleague from when I lived in Hong Kong.


• Tuesday was a night out with the girls in our team (if only Joe from sales or Ben from finance could have heard our feedback on their various body parts).


• Wednesday my friend Lucy took me to the opera, in Covent Garden Opera House. Words would not suffice to describe the experience.


• Thursday was another work dinner with people from my nationality I have just met on my floor (at work that is, not inside my home, that would have been weird).


• Friday I went to see the new Woody Allen film "You will meet a tall dark stranger". Yeeah, it's ok, good if you don't have anything better to do.


• Saturday I spent the afternoon in a garden eating cakes and sipping tea and champagne at a Garden, Tea and Champagne party. Then in the evening, clearly not having had enough action, I had dinner with high school friends who were in town.

By Sunday morning I was tired. Boyyyy, so tired. So what did I decide to do? Spring clean the flat. And then head to the gym. And what happened in the gym? I lifted a tiny little weight and my back went KKRREEAAKK. And that was that, no more back for Evie. Today I spent the day dragging my carcass around looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I went to see the physio, seriously praying that he would not ask me to take my trousers off and stand in my underwear, the situation would have been very, erm, hairy. Thank god he did not.. Now I've got to give the crazy running around a rest, and I do like the sound of that. So the moral of the story is: sometimes even the Yes Woman has got to learn to say No.

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself (Andy Warhol)

Says it all really

Indigestion

Blame it on the spring, blame it on the sunshine, but I feel incredibly positive. I feel like someone has given me a new pair of glasses to look at life with, and unloaded a massive weight from my back. It's a sort of buzz. A joyous humming from deep inside me and that gives me a lot of hope, courage and eagerness to get on with life.
One of the key things I have learned through the past couple of months and especially my break up, is that I have been for too long a swallower, not a digester. I mean that all my life, I have just taken whatever came my way, without analysing it much, thinking about it much, critizising it. I just swallowed everything whole. If a new relationship came up, I would just keep going at it until somehow it reached a breaking point where something deeper and more meaningful from me was needed. All the jobs I have had, came to me by chance. I have drifted through life "accidentally" without dwelving too deep into things, without trusting myself to change things pro-actively. I am not say things happening by chance are a bad thing, au contraire, but there is a part of you that needs a captain to steer the ship, it can't all be steered by currents that happen to be under the boat (if you follow my beautiful metaphorical life imagery).
And now, I have a reached a stage where I can say "STOOOOP!". Stop and think.
And it means I can start learning to think about things differently. Instead of "I hate my job, I am going to leave" it's now "there are things in my job I don't like, what concrete steps do I need to take to change them?". Instead of "Hmm this relationship does not feel right, not sure what to do" it's "Let's discuss together our relationship as something is bugging me". Seems obvious right? But for me it's new.
Right now I feel like standing on top a hill and yelling "I want to seize the world of opportunities out there! Bring it on!".

Enough introspective Evie-ism for today, I think I need to go and search the world of opportunities in my bed now (note, I am talking about sleep only here!) (at least for night, heheh).

Why so sad?

A few weeks ago the music stopped playing and life came to a bit of a halt. The relationship I had desperately been clinging on to was suddenly over. For some reason, it came as a huge surprise. After all, it had felt so right.
Or had it?
With the benefit of hindsight, I realise there were some warning signs that may have been big fat glaring giveaways. Such as:
- he avoided the subject of moving in together
- I was always the one accommodating him, never the other way round
- he never told me he loved me
- and my favorite: each time I went to his house my stomach ached (talk of bad gut feeling..)
The list goes on and on. I would list them all here (I have it written down you see) but I don't dare come clean and show here how much in denial I have been. Maybe later.

I survived the past few weeks thanks to a few precious life buoys:
- My friends
- A manic workload which kept me busy
- A book anyone over the age of 15 may have problems admitting having read, but what the hell, I can't go much lower than this: "It's called a break up because it's broken". Thank you dear authors for this god's gift to the broken hearted.

But this is not a blog about the break up. The plan is to let water flow under the bridge. Although between now and the 3rd of May (semi random date), I am allowed to give in to wallowing in a bit (or a lot) of sadness, expressing masses of cynicism, and smoking copious amounts of cigarettes. After the 3rd of May, operation What Hasn't Killed Me Made Me Stronger will launch, and my already pretty awesome life can resume.

Introductions

Where to begin?
This is the story of a girl.
Quite a few moons ago, she moved to Hong Kong.
She had arrived in the land of the fragrant harbour a bit confused, a bit shaken up by her break up with Le Poulet, and a bit overwhelmed by her new job and new life. You can read about her life here.
It was a good life, she socialised, she proved to herself what she could achieve, she met lots of dubious men.
Courtesy of the credit crunch, she lost her job, but in its stead she found a new man and a new job back in London. She settled in, and rebuilt a new life.
Evie being Evie, nothing went smoothly or according to plan. This is the story of that life, in constant revolution. (given her name is Evie, this blog is called Tales of r-Evie-lution, see what we did here?).